Stalemate

I walk the line between despair and indifference,
A cold, rotten feeling curling in my gut,
Gripping my heart in its wicked grasp.
It threatens to tighten,
To crush my heart to smithereens with its claws,
Yet as time drags on, the threat remains empty.

The weight should break me, and yet I stand—
On the precipice of nothing and everything,
One step from total annihilation.
I hold a stalemate with death,
Refusing to fall, yet longing
For the quiet relief of nothingness.

My will wanes, and my body screams,
And yet, inexplicably, I keep pushing—
Not out of hope, nor out of want,
But out of pure spite.
One foot in front of the other, I stagger forward,
Each breath a stubborn act of defiance.

I do not wish to live,
But letting the darkness finally take me
Would mean admitting defeat,
Conceding to the forces pressing in.
And I am much too stubborn for that.
So I push on, trapped in a war with myself.